A Road Not Taken
by Percyjacksonfan3
Summary: The day before the Battle against Gaea and her Giants, Reyna and Jason have a talk. About the past, about their feelings, about Piper and everything that happened between them. Jayna emotions! Written for Jayna week in PJO Ship Weeks 2014!


**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or places or ideas or any of it. **

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Reyna felt uncomfortable here in Greece. And it wasn't just because she was Roman, although that was certainly a big part of it.

The people here were so friendly. Reyna hadn't exactly had time to tour the ancient remains of Ancient Greece but she had run into a couple of Greek citizens on some small detours (cough, to kill a few hell hounds, snake women and something that looked like a curious mixture of a bear and a boy, cough.)

Reyna wasn't used to friendly. She was used to demands and orders and nods of respect. She was used to followers. She wasn't used to strangers who were actually her equals.

The people here were like... the Canadian stereotype. Most of them were helpful, always looking to offer some help. If you looked lost they would direct you somewhere. They would smile as they passed you and say hello. They acted as if they had known you somewhere years before and had just run into one another.

Reyna internally wondered what people in Rome were like. Perhaps the same. Maybe different.

She wondered if the stereotypes that Romans were much crueler and harsher than Greeks weren't the load of pegasus poop she had always assumed they were. Percy had gotten her thinking but after being at Camp Half-Blood to return the Athena Parthenos and meeting actual Greek citizens... well, maybe it was more true than she had originally thought.

But she shoved those feelings away. Right now really wasn't the time to analyze her messed up feelings about the locals.

Now was the time to discuss the incredibly high risk she could die tomorrow.

Among other things.

When she entered the war strategy tent he was the only one in it, a fact she had counted on. He had always used to stay minutes, sometimes hours, after a war council meeting. He would be looking over plans, rethinking strategies, trying to come up with new, better ways to do whatever they had planned to do. Jason Grace had always checked and double checked everything, a trait Reyna had used to love.

Now she was just glad it hadn't changed- possibly the only thing about him that hadn't.

Today had been the final preparations for tomorrow. The Greek camper leaders had met with the centurions and praetors of New Rome to discuss tactics. The satyr named Grover had sat in as well (something about a Council of Satyrs?) and he would be informing all of the nature spirits of the plans for tomorrow.

Tomorrow. The day they all planned to lay waste to Gaea's enormous army of giants, monsters straight from Tartarus and probably a few gods.

Today had been finalizing details, checking and double checking certain people were fine with certain jobs.

Jason and Percy were going to lead them all into battle.

Reyna had met Annabeth's eyes and she had known that the blond was just as happy as she was about that decision. Honestly Reyna had expected Percy and Annabeth to stay together throughout the entire fight. Yet Percy had been strangely adamant that Annabeth was not going in the lead. The vanguard.

Reyna stopped thinking about that as well. The couple were entitled to their reasons. It was none of her business.

But Jason...

Seeing him brought back memories from months ago. Sword fights, shared looks across tables, charging with him on Mount Tam to take down the titan Krios. Him telling her about his family, or what he could remember about them, the night he discovered he was a child of Jupiter. The night before storming the Titan's lair when she asked him to sleep with her in her praetor house and they stayed up talking before finally falling asleep on her bed beside one another, hand in hand.

"Reyna?" He asked her in surprise, looking up from the papers on the table in front of him. "What are you doing in here? Did something happen?"

"No," she said quickly before pausing. "Nothing like that." She cleared her throat and looked down, putting what Jason had used to call her 'dealing with Octavian' face on.

She didn't want him to see how much she just wanted to scream at him.

Part of it was from fear. One, or both, of them might die tomorrow and Reyna knew with certainty that she didn't want that to happen with their relationship being... what it was. She was scared that he was going to lead them all, and she was scared because she knew that Jason would be the demigod to kill Porphyrion or die trying.

Part of wanting to yell at him was just to get out her feelings. Even now she couldn't look at him without her heart beating faster than usual and she couldn't look at Piper without feeling like it should be her in the daughter of Aphrodite's place. With him.

"Did Leo get tied to a tree by the Hermes campers again?" Jason asked.

Reyna shook her head. "No, I- I just remembered that... after strategy talk you always stayed longer than anybody else," she said. "I was... checking on you."

She internally scolded herself for how layered in feelings that sounded. He has a girlfriend to do that for him, she reminded herself.

Although Piper was strangely absent.

"Oh," his tone was covered in surprise. "I'm okay."

Reyna met his eyes and saw that he was not okay. Not even in the same area as okay.

She moved forward to sit beside him. "What is it?" She asked, mind running through every plan, every possible screw up he might have found issue with.

He just shook her head and she grit her teeth in frustration at his lack of answer.

A year ago she would have been able to read the words right from his face, to see what was bothering him immediately. Now, only 12 months later, he was completely different.

And she was lost.

"I'm scared I'll fail."

The words were quiet, muted, and covered in shame. Reyna stared at the boy in front of her in surprise before shaking her head.

"Gods, Jason, you're so stupid."

He looked over at her in surprise, with a little bit of hurt, and she bit her cheek to stop from smiling.

"You were elected Praetor of New Rome after coming from nothing," she told him. "You built up the Fifth Cohort's reputation from nothing." She reached out and touched his hand, hesitating slightly but he didn't seem to notice. "You led Camp Jupiter in the siege against Krios and the Titan's headquarters and were elected as Praetor on the night we won," she smiled at seeing him lost in the memories. "But both of us know you should have been elected long before that. There's no one better to lead us into battle."

"There's Percy," Jason muttered, not with jealousy but resignation. "He's dealt with things like this before- you saw him at the meeting today. Calm as could be as he sat there and talked about formations and groupings of demigods with Clarisse and Chiron. You don't know everything he's done, he's like a god-"

"I do know," she interrupted. "I was at Camp Half-Blood to return the Athena Parthenos, I saw how the campers talked about him, the way they waited for him to come back and then got themselves together to travel half way across the world to finally be reunited with him. I do know."

Jason spoke again before she could continue. "Then you know he'd be better at this," he said, meeting her eyes. "He inspires loyalty in people, he makes them feel safe and like he's got their backs. He makes things personal." Jason stressed. "I can't do that. When I got back to Camp Jupiter my campers ended up raging and hitting me in the head with a brick without second thoughts. The Greeks would never do that to Percy."

"Maybe," Reyna said, thinking back to that day and grimacing slightly. "But great leaders- they're not known for making things emotional and personal, Jason. Great leaders are the ones who know when to fight on or accept defeat. Great leaders aren't reckless like Percy. They take into account every possibility so that everyone knows what they're going up against. The great leaders are the ones who think everything through to make sure that nobody will get hurt because they didn't consider a possibility. You are a great leader," Reyna said, squeezing his hand softly. "And there is nobody, not even Percy, I would rather have leading me into battle. Even if it does make me scared for you, I know I can trust you. And the rest of us do too. We would all trust you with our lives."

"You don't know that I'll be able to do this."

"I do," she replied right away. "You led our entire camp into battle against a titan," Reyna said. "I didn't hesitate to follow you then and you know I won't now."

"Why?" He asked suddenly. "Why did you never hesitate? Why did you trust me so much?"

Reyna suddenly noticed how close they were, heads a foot or so apart, and sat back up straight, pulling her hand away from his. His eyes flickered down to watch the movement but he never said anything, waiting for her answer as his sky blue eyes met hers.

"You know why," she finally said, deciding it was the safest answer as her mouth suddenly went dry.

He shook his head. "No, I never knew with you. That was the problem. I didn't remember before but I do now. Sometimes you would act as if we were fellow praetors, nothing more, nothing less. Other times you would hang out with my friends and I and we would be just that, friends. But then- sometimes- that night you came to see me before storming Mount Tam we talked and I thought maybe-"

"I loved you," she blurted out, watching his face carefully.

He stopped speaking, and blinked once, then twice. "Then- why didn't you say-"

"Would it have made a difference?" She asked bitterly.

"Yes," he said before clearing his throat. "Probably a lot of difference. Everything would have been different. I wouldn't have fallen for Piper, I would have remembered you-"

Reyna laughed. Bitterly, shallowly, exhaustedly. "Of course you would have fallen for Piper!" Reyna said. "Jason, you two together... it's not like you and me. It's completely different, less tense, less skittish and more natural and fun. You trust her and open up to her more easily than you ever did with me. And how long did it take you two to start dating her? A month? I've known you for 5 years and we still didn't even make it past being friends-"

"I would have asked you out the moment I knew you liked me back!" He exclaimed. "Reyna, I had the biggest crush on you before I was taken away to Camp Half-Blood. But you never made me feel like me asking you out was something you wanted. Sometimes I thought you might like me, maybe even as more than a passing crush, but right after that you would shut down again. It took me 3 years to get you to open up about Hylla and Circe's island. And after I was made praetor I figured we would have as long as we wanted to make it past the friendship stage. But if you had just told me how you felt I would have remembered you-"

"No you wouldn't have," Reyna said, ignoring the bitter regret that filled her at his words. He was staring at her like she was crazy and she really wished he wouldn't. "You didn't lose your memory of me because I never told you I loved you," she told him, wishing her words weren't true but knowing they were. "You didn't remember me because you never loved me."

"No." He said dumbly after a second. "No- I- I did-"

"Think about it Jason," she said. "Did you ever feel for me even a smidgen of what you feel for Piper? A fraction of it? Percy remembered Annabeth from the moment he opened his eyes at the Wolf House," Reyna told him. "And he never wavered from that memory of her, even though he had no idea whether she was even alive or they were still together as a couple. I offered him the praetorship almost as soon as he got to Camp Jupiter, and he knew everything that I was involving in that." She watched Jason carefully, noticing his face grow guarded. "He said no because he had a girlfriend. He didn't even think twice. The power of leading the Legion, the respect that came with the position... he would have liked both, I know it, but he didn't want to be disloyal to Annabeth."

Reyna met his eyes steadily. "And even if you had remembered me from the start, it wouldn't have changed anything. You started to date Piper a month after you were abducted. You probably at least remembered my name, that a girl existed out there named Reyna who you were close to. But you didn't stop that from letting you get together with Piper."

"But I didn't know how you felt about me-."

"Doesn't matter," Reyna said standing up and watching him stand up with her. "Jason what do you want me to say? It's a good thing you and Piper are together. You two love each other and I'm not going to break that up." She shook her head. "This whole conversation is pointless anyway-"

"Because you don't love me anymore?" He asked her.

"No." She answered, staring at him resolutely, no matter how much it hurt. "Because you left me. In mind, body and soul, you left me. And the fact that you did didn't worry you at all, didn't bother you even subconsciously. Even though you didn't remember I even existed. And we can't come back from that. And you would never hurt Piper that way."

He stared at her right back before nodding slowly. "You're right," he said. "I wouldn't." He shook his head. "But there was a time I wouldn't have hurt you that way either."

"And now that time's gone," she said. "So there's no point thinking about it."

She turned, suddenly done with him and this conversation. It was too much, she hadn't wanted to get into all of this, about feelings. It had been better left unsaid-

He grabbed her wrist and turned her around to stop her. "It would have worked with us," he told her lowly. "That's what sucks the most, is that I know it could have worked with us."

She shook her head. "Worked as well as it does with you and Piper?"

He hesitated and then let her go, releasing her. "No."

She nodded in acceptance, having expected the answer. "Okay then." She said, staring up at him.

He stared back at her and she wondered if the emotion in his eyes was regret as well.

She leaned up, surprising even herself, and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. "Just in case," she whispered after. "Because of tomorrow."

And then she left before he could catch sight of her tears.

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**Written for PJO Ship Weeks 2014, Jayna week.**

**Love you all!**

**Percyjacksonfan3**


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